Voice your views to the FCC next week

Seattle stop's late notice criticized

Published 10:00 pm, Friday, November 2, 2007

The Federal Communications Commission says it plans to hold a hearing on media ownership next Friday in Seattle, but the late notice of the meeting drew immediate criticism from two FCC members.

The hearing, the sixth in a series that began last year, will run from 4 to 11 p.m. at Town Hall.

Details of the hearing's agenda were sketchy Friday; the public will get a chance to make comments, although it's not known yet when that will occur. A similar FCC hearing in Chicago in September included testimony from two panels of broadcast, labor union, academic and community organizations. An FCC spokesman said he didn't know if the Seattle hearing will be set up the same way.

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The commission has been holding hearings around the country on the rules that govern how many radio and television properties a company can own within a market and nationally, as well as those that ban ownership of a daily newspaper and a radio or TV station in the same market. The commission is required by Congress to periodically review ownership rules, but the last round of proposed changes sparked an extended court battle that resulted in proposed relaxation of the rules being largely shelved.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, a Republican appointee, has been pushing to wrap up the commission's latest review of the ownership rules and have a proposal ready by mid-December.

That timetable, as well as the push to change ownership rules, has generated intense controversy.

Advocates of change say the rules as currently structured are relics of the pre-Internet age and don't take into account the dramatic increase in the number of information sources.

Opponents say past rounds of media ownership consolidation have reduced local content as well as diversity in opinions and ownership of media outlets. The FCC has also held a series of hearings on the issue of localism, including one in Washington, D.C., last month.

"A hearing with only five days' notice is no nirvana for Seattle and the Pacific Northwest," said a statement from Democratic FCC members Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, frequent critics of the move toward consolidation.

"This smells like mean spirit. Clearly, the rush is on to push media consolidation to a quick and ill-considered vote. It shows there is a preordained outcome. Pressure from the public and their elected representatives is ignored. With such short notice, many people will be shut out. We received notice of the hearing just moments before it was announced. This is outrageous and not how important media policy should be made."

Copps and Adelstein held their own public hearings in Seattle on the issue of media consolidation, in 2003 and 2006.